


"I lost"

by wouriqueen (MaggieBrown)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Scott McCall As Primary, Talking, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieBrown/pseuds/wouriqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott is trying to carry the world on his shoulders. Melissa won’t let him.</p><p>Or</p><p>A retake of Scott and Melissa’s conversation at the end of “Status Asthmaticus”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"I lost"

**Author's Note:**

> Based off ["queerhawkeye's"](http://queerhawkeye.tumblr.com/) prompt:  
> "Melissa talking to Scott. Melissa talking to Scott about her own tendency to put everyone else's well-being before hers and how she knows he passed this onto Scott, and how they both need to learn to care more about themselves, and how much she loves him and how proud she is of him."
> 
> Not _exactly_ that but I really wanted to write this. Hope you like it!

Scott sits on his bed, achy limbs rumpling the cool linens and bloody cuts dirtying them. The wound in his abdomen has begun healing but he can still feel Theo’s claws burying in his flesh. It’s not a new feeling. He remembers Gerard’s knife as he threatened his mother. He remembers Matt at the police station and the bullet he’d shot in his gut. He remembers the sword – twice, and although the last time was not real it felt just as if it had been. The boy adjusts himself against the headboard, muffling a groan. He should be used to this. That should be nothing for someone who’s been through as much as he has. He shouldn’t allow common obstacles like this ridiculous pain to slow him down yet again.

And yet, there he is.

That’s why he’s weak.

That’s why he failed.

The thought brings tears to his eyes, welling up under his eyelids and burning hard. He lost. Hayden is dead. Malia and Lydia are God knows where, and there is no way for him to know if Theo has done something to them. Stiles … he wants to talk to him. Find out why he lied to him, what really happened. He wants to run – get up, leave the house and find them, but his body won’t allow it. Every sudden move makes his head spin. He couldn’t walk home without support.

He doesn’t even think he could roar again.

Melissa enters the room, pausing slightly in the entrance. It’s the blood, probably. He can feel it dry up against the skin of his face. It’s still wet and hot on his stomach though, slowly seeping out of the healing wound.

His mother sets her first-aid kit on the bedside table and helps him out of his jacket and shirt. She cleans the wound even though they both know it’s useless, tends to him silently. He doesn’t say a word, lost in his own thoughts. Thinking about what could be happening and worst-case scenarios is too terrifying, so instead he thinks about the past, and has to admit that Theo’s game was perfect. He remembers how he couldn’t find Liam but Theo did – the hero of the day, only highlighting his own incompetence. He knew where they were, of course. He’d always known. Scott thinks back on every single event since the start of the year, and the statement comes out of his lips, unexpected even to him, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.

“I lost, Mom.”

She stops scrubbing the blood on his left cheek and looks at him, though Scott can’t hold her gaze. He was supposed to save Hayden, instead his mother had to watch her die. She’s another victim of his failures.

Melissa sighs, setting down the wet cloth.

“Every leader suffers loss, Scott.”

Yes, but no. Not so utterly. No matter how hard things got, they always ended up finding out more about their enemy. About who to protect, or at least how to stop them. But here he is, and the Dread Doctors are as much of a mystery as they’d been when everything began.

It’s not that his ego can’t handle failure or loss. It’s about the many people he feels responsible for.

“I can’t afford it, Mom.” It’s quiet, regretful. He’s looking at her hands, lean and assured. Melissa grabs him by the chin and forces him to meet her gaze, but he avoids it.

“Scott. Scott, look at me.” Silence. The bottled up despair is shaking him to the core and threatening to spill out. It’s like a giant wave of boiling water rocking against his insides, scalding and crushing. “Baby, please.”

He yields, but her caring, understanding eyes are too much for him to take and before he knows it, tears are running down his face, hiccups constricting his throat and lungs. He doesn’t sob though. His jaw is firmly set, so hard the bones could crack. Scott is not sure he wouldn’t start screaming if he let loose. Melissa brings her hand to the sides of his face, wiping away the tears as they come.

“You did nothing wrong, baby. You did all you could.” He shakes his head from left to right, that is not true. He could’ve done better. “Scott, listen to me. You are a great leader and a great friend. Okay? You’re brave, you’re strong and you don’t stop even when things get hard. You never stop fighting back but you also care so much about people, about your friends and that is what matters.”

“What does it matter if I keep failing them?” he chokes out, hands balled in fists.

“You did not fail them. You fought for them. You _died_ for them.” There’s a quiver in her voice. She probably had to feel his dead pulse and he is _so sorry_. “Scott … I need you to remember, the best leader is not necessarily the one who always win.”

He nods, but it doesn’t make the pain go away. It doesn’t make the shame go away. He knows, deep down, what makes him so angry at himself.

“Mom … I _trusted_ him. I – I told him my most private thoughts, I –“

Melissa doesn’t let him finish. Instead, she’s kicking off her shoes and sitting cross-legged in front of him on the bed. She seems thoughtful, eyes trained on her knuckles, like she’s debating whether or not they should pursue this conversation. Instinctively, Scott reaches out and squeezes her hand, grimacing slightly because of his own pain, but somehow that just makes her eyes shiny with more tears.

“I know what you’re doing, Scott. You leaned on Theo for help, and now you’re blaming yourself for it. You wanted support and you think that was your mistake.”

“It _was_ my mistake.”

“Baby, listen. I … I know how you feel. To be honest, I used to be the same as you”, she chuckles, “Always feeling like I should do everything to help others, with no regard for my own struggle. I’m going to tell you something though, and I need you to pay attention. Okay?”

She waits for him to nod before speaking again. “Back then, when I met your father … _gosh_ , was I in love. I had just started my Associate’s degree in nursing at the time, and he was a college student. He already knew what he wanted to be though – the FBI was his big dream. I got pregnant a few months before graduation.” Her voice settles low, like she’s lost in memories. “Things, um. Things got hard for a little while. My mother had to move in with us to help with you so I could start working. But I found a good place. You know? They were willing to give me responsibility quite fast. I was good, like, _really good_ ” she teases. Scott chuckles, then winces at the rawness of his throat. Melissa smiles back.

“Rafa – your father, he wanted to be an FBI agent. That comes with certain obligations. He had to stay away for some considerable periods of time, but he didn’t want us to stay behind. I thought it didn’t matter. We were a young couple, we could face the distance, but you know him, his stubbornness.”

The alpha nods with a wistful smile on his bloody lips.

“We moved around. It’s hard to find a steady job like that so I mostly just filled in for other people. Eventually, he was sent to this area. I wanted an apartment, he wanted a house. I knew he had this grand plan for his life, so I yielded. You know? I just wanted him to be happy.” Scott frowns, remembering the bills and how they’re not done paying for the house. He always resented his father for not really helping, but this just made it worse.

“No, no. The matter here is not your father’s fuck-ups”, Melissa said, waving her hands in front of his face to pull him out of his reverie. “What I mean is, what I did back then was sacrifice my own wants, what I thought was best, so that the man I cared about would be happy. That’s also what I did when I gave up on college so that my younger sister could go, knowing we couldn’t handle two loans. I endured your father’s mood swings and criticism because I knew how hard things were for him at work. There’s much more. Some I regret, some I don’t.” Melissa smiles, that special, playful kind of smile that always makes the alpha feel good. It doesn’t last, and in a matter of seconds she looks serious again.

“But sometimes we also need to think about ourselves. Scott, you keep worrying about the hard times your friends have been through. What about yours?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not, Scott.” She leans in, grabs his face in her hands once again. “And it’s okay! You’re a boy who’s been thrown in an unknown world without any kind of guidance, yet you took all those burdens upon yourself” she replies, something akin to awe on her face. ”And I’m proud of you for that”, she adds. Scott closes his eyes, tears threatening to take over again.

“But sweetie, you must remember that you _do not owe anything to anyone_. And I will not let you think otherwise, not anymore. Others prioritize their kids, I see no reason why I should let mine go have himself butchered without saying a word”. She’s fierce now, grip almost painful on his jaw and Scott wonders for a moment if something happened he doesn’t know about.

“I sort of do, mom. _I_ changed Malia back. _I_ lied to Kira about her kitsune. Stiles and Lydia can’t defend themselves. _I_ turned Liam. Just think about it!” Anguish starts flooding his brain as he remembers Hayden dying, the calm his mother had instilled in him evaporated. He feels trapped. “I made promises…” And there it is again. A familiar burn courses through his stilling lungs as the alpha starts gasping for air. “I …”

Melissa is gone and back in an instant. One hand pushing the inhaler in his mouth, the other cradling his head, she presses the device each time he sucks air in, rocking him slowly back and forth even after he’s found his breath back. It doesn’t matter if it’s asthma or a panic attack, really. The familiarity of it all, the inhaler, his mother’s arms, it brings back distant memories to the alpha. He was a small child back then and certainly not a werewolf.

Some things haven’t changed, and ultimately it is that thought that settles him again.

“You are not responsible for their lives. Yes, you’ve made some mistakes, but we all do. You helped Malia adjust to and enjoy humanity again. You saved Liam’s life. Scott, I …” She pauses there and releases him to look at his face. Scott immediately misses her embrace. He hates himself for it. “I know you think I don't get it, but I do. I may not be an alpha, but as a parent, there are some things you experience. Your child gets sick, and you blame yourself, even when you couldn’t have helped it. “I should have known” you tell yourself, “I should have seen it coming””.

The words bring Scott back to that conversation they had at the hospital, after Tracy's body had disappeared. He's familiar with the feeling, yes.

“But there is something you, my boy, needs to learn.” She inhales. “You. Are not. Responsible. For. The world. It is what it is, and I don’t know anyone who would’ve dealt with it better than you did.” She looks determined and proud, and it makes Scott cry again, burying his face in her stomach as he lies back against his pillow. Every time he inhales, her perfume overwhelms his senses. “But most of all Scott, what I need you to remember – what we both need to remind ourselves, to be honest – is that it’s okay to want things. It’s okay to feel lost and hurt, even when others are feeling that way too. Just because we care about them does not mean we should ignore how we feel. You’re a person. You have the right to feel vulnerable.”

“Even when it destroys the pack? My friends?”

“Theo brought chaos, Scott, not your humanity. There wouldn’t even be a pack to destroy without it.”

Melissa says a lot of other things that night. Scott is not sure he believes all of them. He’s not sure he deserves the comfort. The thoughts of his pack falling apart, of all the secrets, the lies, the fights, the deaths – it keeps him awake. However Melissa sounds so sure, he tells himself, maybe there’s something here. Maybe she’s right. So he holds onto that thought, because then he doesn’t have to blame himself so much. Because that helps, if he wants to pick himself back up. Because he wants to believe her. He wants it to be his truth as well.

Maybe one day it will be.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta reader who has to put up with me from thousands of miles away.  
> You can find her ["here."](http://www.cloudsandground.tumblr.com)
> 
> As for me, you can find me ["over here."](http://www.wouriqueen.tumblr.com)


End file.
